. after claiming viktry in his first debate with president obama. let's bringinjimacosta.>> after a couple of days of positive reviews, mitt romney is running into political news that may be blunting some of that momentum. the jobs report is taking away a key line of attack for the gop contender for months. romney has said the president has failed to bring the nation's unemployment rate below 8% but romney found a new way to crunch numbers here in virginia. >> campaigning in virginia coal country, mitt romney tried to dig through the latest jobs number to make the case president obama has not pit pay dirt just yet. >> there were fewer new jobs created this month than last month. and the unemployment rate has come down very slowly, but it's come down nonetheless. the reason it's come down this year is primarily due to the fact that more and more people have just stopped looking for work. >> still, one of romney's key metrics on the president's handling of the economy went up in smoke, when the nation's unemployment rate dipped below 8%. >> 8% unemployment for over how many, 43 mont

is still well above the national average. wolf.>>jimacostajoining us, thanks very much. let's dig deeper right now with our chief political analyst gloria borger. gloria, this unemployment number, the new number, how important is it to each of these two candidates? >> well, first of all it's got to be a real boost for president obama as jessica was talking about earlier. if not reality, then also a real psychological boost to get below that 8% figure. very important to them. because what it does, wolf, is it plays into the poll numbers that we've already been seeing, which is that people believe that things are getting better. the numbers are still not where the president wants them to be. but if it plays into a sense of optimism in this country, that's very good for the president. but overall you're going to hear the same refrain from both campaigns. the president's going to say that he's added more than 5 million jobs, and mitt romney's going to say there's still 23 million unemployed. >> you've spent a lot of time covering mitt romney. you did that excellent documentary all of

after a strong showing in last night's presidential debate. cnn national politicalcorrespondentjimacostahas the latest. jim. >> reporter: wolf, flying to virginia mitt romney will spend much of the day after the first presidential debate up in the air. but for the first time in weeks the state of his campaign is not. mitt romney took his victory lap after the first presidential debate receiving a sustained standing ovation during a surprise visit to a conference of conservatives in denver. >> i saw the president's vision as trickled down government. and i don't think that's what america believes in. i see instead a prosperity that comes through freedom. >> reporter: it didn't take long after the debate was finished for the romney campaign to turn the spin room into the win room. are you declaring victory, jim, if this was a boxing match, the referee would have called it. after taking some knocks from some in the gop after spending too much time in debate prep and not enough in rally in swing states, the romney campaign felt vindicated. although eric fehrnstrom pushed back on the

be accomplished tonight. cnn's national politicalcorrespondentjimacostais in denver getting ready to set the scene. jim. >> reporter: wolf, the romney campaign sees the polls moving in their directions. one of the top priorities tonight is to maintain that trajectory. the romney campaign also says the gop nominee will not be looking to score a knockout tonight but will instead zero in on the president's handling of the economy. you can say that the romney game plan for tonight can be boiled down into two key phrases. do no harm and live to fight another day. just a few hours before one of the most important nights of his political life, mitt romney walked through the debate site in denver prepped for his first one-on-one face-off with the president. campaign officials tell cnn romney's game plan tonight is to provide a clear choice, talk about his plan to create jobs and contrast that with the president's performance on the economy. and in a sign of caution, the campaign says romney won't be looking for a knockout punch. one of romney's top surrogates, florida senator marco rubio says th

's national politicalcorrespondentjimacostareports from iowa right now where romney held a rally earlier in the day. jim. >> reporter: wolf, the romney campaign is clearly feeling good, but at the same time top advisors are trying to downplay the importance of a slew of new polls showing the gop nominee now in a real horse race with president obama in a sign that all of this has gotten the president's attention. this campaign has suddenly turned into a race over small things or rather one big bird. plowing into his proposals to help american farmers, mitt romney had poultry on his mind in iowa. of the eight-foot and yellow variety as he accused the president of fouling up the nation's weak recovery. >> you have to scratch your head when the president spends the last week talking about saving big bird. i actually think we need to have a president who talks about saving the american people and saving good jobs and saving our future. >> one man has the guts to speak his name. >> big bird. big bird. >> reporter: it was a direct response to the latest ad from the obama campaign. >> mitt romne

, bolder response by a romney administration. cnn's national politicalcorrespondentjimacostahas more on that. >> reporter: wolf, after millions of americans watched mitt romney go toe to toe with president obama at their first debate, the gop nominee now wants voters to see him as commander in chief. he's done just that in a series of foreign policy speeches, including one here at the virginia military institute where he kudz the president of allowing the middle east to drift closer towards war. telling a crowd of cadets and supporters at the virginia military institute that hope is not a strategy on foreign policy, mitt romney wasted no time in building his case that the middle east has grown more dangerous under president obama's watch. exhibit a was last month's attack that left a u.s. ambassador dead at the american consulate in libya. >> the attacks on america last not should not be seen as random acts. they're expressions of a larger struggle playing out across the broader middle east and i'll vigorously pursue the terrorists who attacked our consulate in benghazi and killed ou

-off tomorrow night. and as cnn's national politicalcorrespondentjimacostadiscovered, it will be one of the very two times the two men have actually met in person. jim is joining us live from littleton, colorado. what's the latest on this particular score, jim? >> reporter: well, wolf, i can tell you right now that ann romney is about to take the stage behind me. she's going to be holding an event here in littleton, colorado, in a few moments from now. she's been one of this campaign's most effective surrogates and been very busy doing just that while her husband, mitt romney, has been doing debate preparations just a short distance away in denver. it will be fascinating, wolf, to watch the body language between mitt romney and president obama tomorrow night when they meet face-to-face as the obama campaign revealed to cnn, the two men have only met a few times in the past. flash back to 2008 and there they are. then-senator barack obama and mitt romney sharing a few moments on stage after back-to-back democratic and republican presidential debates in new hampshire. they also ran int

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